Ranbir Kapoor pleads guilty in smoking case

Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor Thursday pleaded guilty, through his lawyers, to charges of smoking publicly during a movie shoot in Rajasthan's Udaipur district about four months ago and sought exemption from personal appearance in the case, a lawyer said.

Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor on Thursday pleaded guilty, through his lawyers, to charges of smoking publicly during a movie shoot in Rajasthan's Udaipur district about four months ago and sought exemption from personal appearance in the case, a lawyer said.

Kapoor, who was represented by three lawyers, had been accused of publicly smoking at Ghangaur Ghat in Udaipur on March 28.

"Harish Vaishanav had approached the court saying that the actor violated the law by smoking publicly. The court issued a summon to the actor on May 31. The summon was delivered to his house in Mumbai by police recently," said advocate KK Purohit, who represented the actor in the court Thursday.

"We filed an application pleading guilty to the charges under the Rajasthan Prevention of Smoking Act and seeking exemption for Kapoor's personal appearance before the court," said Purohit.

Purohit pleaded that the offence was mistakenly done by the actor and he (Kapoor) has assured the court that this kind of thing would not be repeated again.

The court has fixed on Aug 27 for the next hearing in the case, he added.

The additional chief judicial magistrate had summoned Kapoor to appear before his court on July 26 on a complaint that he publicly smoked during the shooting of his movie "Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani" in the town, some 300 km from Jaipur.

According to a Rajasthan law, an offender could face maximum imprisonment of six months or a maximum fine of Rs 200 for smoking in public.